Old People Eating

Yesterday evening was the mass celebration of our daughter's engagement. This evening was the quieter affair with the happy couple and one set of parents. We chose La Pont de la Tour, a French restaurant which is part of the D&D group, that can be found on the south bank of the river Thames just to the east of Tower Bridge, from which it takes its name. We didn't sit outside; it's still January. The older generation arrived first and a few minutes early. The younger generation arrived fashionably late, having been to another gathering where they had bumped into a real live movie star and somehow the allure of Old People Eating was insufficient motivation for the use of a wristwatch. Do young people even have wristwatches? No matter, as the perfectly acceptable tardiness gave the early shift the opportunity to engage the Sicilian bartender, or should I say 'mixologist' in conversation about holiday opportunities. For us, not him. It also gave our new ...

Last night we had a bit of a do in a very noisy, urban warehouse chic bar in Hackney to celebrate the recently announced betrothal of the youngest of the progeny, so this morning we felt the need for a restorative rural breakfast and took a trip to P E Mead in Wilstone. Mead's has been an excellent farm shop for many years and has now expanded its café into a new barn conversion building on the same site. After some deliberation, we ordered two all day breakfasts. I think they are called all day breakfasts because they are big enough to feed a diner for an entire day. Each plate housed two slices of sourdough toast, a large mushroom, a grilled tomato, two rashers of bacon, a slice of black pudding, three slices of King's Farm's excellent Wendover Royal sausages, a small pot of baked beans, a fried egg (with no 'gurgly bits') and two thick slices of fried potato. All of it was perfectly cooked, well presented and delicious. One black Americano coffee and ...